Lotus set for mid-February debut

The chief technical officer for Lotus, Mike Gascoyne, has confirmed that the team are a week ahead of schedule on their building of their car, and still making excellent progress.

When asked how the team were faring, he said:

“We had been looking at firing up our engine for the first time on 12th February, but with the efforts everyone’s been putting in we have now been able to bring that forward to 5th February. This is obviously a great boost for everyone involved in the team, and shows how much hard work has already gone in since we had our entry confirmed on September 12th.

“With the engine fire-up date now in the diary, we are also in a position to confirm that we will be on track for the first time at the third official test at Jerez from 17th February, and then at Barcelona from 25th February. We are also aiming to run chassis two for the last two days of that Barcelona test.”

Also, he announced that there would be a mojor upgrade on the car at the Spanish Grand Prix in May. He also revealed that the team were planning to be in the midfield after the first few races of the season.

He stated: ““We have said we are aiming to be ahead of the new teams when we all reach Bahrain, but we would also like to be pretty close to the midfield teams after the first few races of the season.

“The update we have planned for Spain will see a boost in performance when we reach Barcelona which will give us the chance to start fighting with the slowest of the established teams which, given progress so far, has to be the next goal for us.”